Confirmation on Gigabyte’s Z68 leadership and P67 support

With Intel’s new Z68 overclocking platform close to launch, Gigabyte’s team took time out of their busy schedules to discuss with KitGuru the changes that are happening in the market, the way that Gigabyte is pushing hard on R&D and the value of long term customer support.

KitGuru’s recent article on Gigabyte’s early movement toward the improved Intel Z68 chipset seems to have sparked debate in forums across the globe. Must be great for any brand to know that so many people care so much about their products.

Andrew Borkowski from Gigabyte’s UK office discussed the movement, “First let me say that Gigabyte will have P67 products in the market through to the end of 2011 and support for the platform will continue after that. But it is true that we will be moving aggressively to the new Intel 6-series platform”.

Borkowski continued, “While Gigabyte sells a broad cross section of mainboard products, from entry level upwards, the thing that we are best known for is serious, pro-class gaming boards like the G1 Assassin and overclocking boards like the X58A-OC”.

On that basis, an early move to the slightly more expensive, but ‘better on paper’ Z68 makes perfect sense. KitGuru is hearing from other sources that the chipset price difference might only be a fiver to the end user ($8 or less), which – if it is that much better – would easily be absorbed in enthusiast products.

“Enthusiasts always demand more. They want improved features, better overclocks and all of the other good things that come with next generation technology”, said Borkowski. “Our engineers have been working closely with Intel and we’re ready for the move to the new chipset”.

“We believe that this platform will be hugely popular with enthusiasts and overclockers”, said Borkowski. “The pricing for this new platform should also be very attractive in that context”. That last statement about pricing, seems to indicate that Gigabyte believes Z68 can also make a strong impact in the mainstream user/system integration markets.

We asked Borkowski about the rest of the Gigabyte Sandy Bridge range, “With the H-series products, we’re expecting those to be in the production still in 2012”.

Just how close Gigabyte is to launching its brand new Z68 products is a mystery.

KitGuru says: Overall, it looks like 2011 will be a busy year for the Gigabyte mainboard teams – as they work hard to ensure not only are they leading the delivery of new platforms to market, but also ensuring that existing products have suitable on-going support. We can’t wait to see Gigabyte’s quad-channel memory offers for Xmas 2011.